Number of bird flu cases revised down to nine

Hospital information panels in western Switzerland give advice Keystone

The Federal Veterinary Office has revised downwards to nine the number of cases of wild birds infected with bird flu in Switzerland.

The office said on Monday that two cases were mistakenly diagnosed as having bird flu last week, and seven other suspected cases had turned out not to have the virus after all.

The tally of wild birds found dead with the H5 virus is now confirmed at nine: one from Geneva and eight from northern Switzerland in the area around Lake Constance.

Two other cases reported in Geneva were falsely diagnosed, and seven dead birds found in Lake Lucerne over the weekend tested negative for the virus.

So far only one – the Geneva case – has been confirmed as having the deadly H5N1 virus.

The Federal Veterinary Office said it had sent samples, as with previous cases, to a European Union laboratory in Britain for further tests.

The veterinary office says it expects further cases in the next few days as surveillance programmes have been stepped up.

On Saturday, Health Minister Pascal Couchepin expressed concern that Switzerland was not in the position to manufacture sufficient quantities of a vaccine for the population in case of a bird flu pandemic among humans.

Couchepin told the Neue Zürcher Zeitung newspaper that Switzerland’s sole vaccine producer, Berna Biotech, probably did not have the necessary capacity since much of its manufacturing had been outsourced abroad.

In December, the health minister warned that nothing could stop countries from banning exports of vaccines in case of a pandemic.

No domestic fowl

So far no domestic fowl in Switzerland have tested positive for the disease. Last month the government re-introduced an outdoor ban on poultry in an effort to prevent the disease from spreading.

Protection and observation zones have been set up around areas affected by bird flu. But the veterinary office stressed that there was no danger to the local population.

As a precautionary measure, it advised people coming in contact with dead or sick birds not to touch them with their bare hands.

Bird flu has also been spreading in countries around Switzerland over the past couple of weeks, notably in France and Germany.

swissinfo with agencies

Key facts

Switzerland has reported one confirmed case of the deadly H5N1 strain.
A Swiss laboratory has so far examined over 230 dead birds suspected of being infected with bird flu.
They involve mostly wild birds, such as swans, ducks and coots, but also some samples from poultry farms.

In brief

The highly pathogenic H5N1 virus was first isolated from a farmed goose in China in 1996.

A year later, the first cases of animal-to-human transmission were recorded in Hong Kong, resulting in six deaths.

In late 2005, the third wave of H5N1 reached eastern Europe on the backs of migrating birds, and turned up in Africa earlier this month.

In the past weeks, H5N1 has spread to Switzerland’s neighbours France, Germany, Italy and Austria.

On February 26, the first suspected case was discovered in Geneva in western Switzerland. It was later confirmed to be the deadly H5N1 strain.